The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5)

by Kaaron Warren

  I explored further, and found a small, sweet-water spring that seeped through the rock at the very back. The cave had formed, I realized, when the river followed a different course. It had been left high and dry when the channel changed its path. These things happened. I tiptoed back towards the entrance and paused to sit for a while, thinking about the tribe who had used this cave. I was overwhelmed by the peacefulness of it: I knew it was a safe haven, a special place. I did not want to leave. I found it very hard to return to the swamp, but I had no camping gear with me, no food. I shall have to go back.

  June 26th

  Last night I found the crystal. I hesitate to write this down, but honesty is one of the privileges of age. I can at least be honest with myself, here, in my own notebook.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the cave. I felt compelled to return to it—and this time I took my backpack, camping gear and bedroll. My first new discovery was a moment of pure pleasure: the lamplight revealed a whole wall of cave paintings, scenes of tribal life picked out in browns, reds, yellows and whites on the bare rock. This had been no casual camp. This was a major site for a vanished people. I wondered if it could have been a sacred place. I imagined the paintings were of a dreamtime story, but it was not a story that I recognized. I pottered around for ages, happily exploring.

  But what I found next worried me. Further back in the cave, above the sooty indentation where the tribal people had kept their fire, a giant black serpent had been drawn in charcoal—it reared up, its huge maw gaping wide as if to swallow the whole world. It took my breath away. It scared the life out of me. I was shaking, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave. And then I remembered that the giant snake must be the Rainbow Serpent. That would make sense: I knew that the mythical creation serpent was always to be found close to water—near rivers, creeks, waterfalls, lagoons—so I figured it must have been depicted here to protect the swamp. I liked that idea. I took comfort from it. I forgot that the Rainbow Serpent could also be very, very dangerous. And I stayed.

  I built my fire in the ancient fireplace, and tiptoed past the enormous serpent to the very back of the cave to fetch water from the spring. And as I leaned forward to fill my billycan I reached out to the rock ledge to steady myself. My fingertips brushed against a cold, hard shape: without thinking I picked it up. I knew from the feel of the thing that I was holding a crystal—heaven knows I have collected enough of them over the years—and so I slipped it into my pocket without paying it much attention. I was too focussed on the spring’s nearness to the menacing serpent: that snake’s black image seemed to coil and grow in the flickering firelight.

  My heart was in my mouth as I edged past it once more. I made it back to my fire, set my billycan on its tripod to boil water for my tea, and cooked my meal, such as it was. Later, I laid out my bedroll beside the fire and curled up to sleep. And when I slept, I dreamed: it was a vivid dream of the tribe that had lived here, as if the painted fishing and hunting scenes had come to life.

  In my dream I was young again. And not just young—I was young and desirable: I was kidnapped by the men from a neighbouring tribe to be the wife of a tall young man with kind brown eyes and the just-healing chest scars of recent ritual. The dream was so real I could smell the camp smoke and the body sweat when I was carried off, slung over a muscular shoulder. I knew, with the certainty of dreams, that I was happy. This was not a violent abduction—it felt stage-managed, as if the elders had orchestrated the whole thing. My handsome dream lover was everything I ever wished for: he satisfied my every desire.

  But such sweet dreams do not last. Some hours later, I woke in darkness. I was cold—I needed to put more wood on the fire. I still had water in my billycan, enough to make another cup of tea. I wanted a hot drink to warm me. And as I waited for the water to boil, I glanced through the mouth of the cave, seeing the stars burning bright in a clear, black winter sky: Scorpio was climbing high into the night, blazing cold and brilliant, and the curve of its tail reminded me of the serpent on the cave wall. It was a bad thought.

  A sudden gust of cold wind blew through the cave. The fire sputtered, but steadied again. Wood smoke eddied about: my eyes watered, and as I reached into my pocket for my handkerchief my fingers found the crystal once more. I took it out, seeing by re-kindled firelight that I held a fine piece of crystalline smoky quartz. I switched on my lamp, holding up the crystal for a better look.

  I wish I hadn’t done that.

  The crystal was beautiful: it shaded from clear grey through to inky black, and it warmed quickly—too quickly—to my touch. It held me. I could not look away. I shivered, gazing into the heart of darkness. And the Darkness stared back. I felt naked, bare to the bone as a searing intelligence peered into the core of me, stripping me to my very soul. There were no words, and yet I understood that it offered knowledge, and with it power—and that it demanded sacrifice in return. It wanted blood, my blood. I did not want to know. I would not pay the price. My mind was being torn apart. I think I must have screamed before I fell senseless on the sandy floor of the cave.

  I do not know how long I lay there. But I remember the dream: no matter how I try, I know I will never forget that dream.

  In this second dream, my young lover was back, and I knew I should be happy. But as I offered myself to his embrace, the dream flicked into nightmare. My lover transformed into a demon, his lovemaking becoming insistent, brutal. He was hurting me, devouring me, pounding my body, bruising my bones. And then he morphed again. He turned into the great serpent itself, wrapping his shining black coils around me, crushing the life out of me. I struggled, but I could not pull away. And yet, I would not yield: the darkness that raped my body could not penetrate the core of me, could not take my mind. I absolutely refused to allow it. It was a small defiance, but it was the only answer that was mine to make. I have known despair: it cannot reach me now. I shrieked at the black, starlit sky.

  I think it must have been my own cry that jolted me from fevered sleep. I woke up shaking, sweating, crying. As I struggled to sit upright, something dark and misshapen slithered away from my thighs—and my thighs felt sticky. The smell of it made me retch. I grabbed for my bedroll and wrapped the blanket around myself, desperate for cover. My breathing slowed, but I knew I couldn’t stay beside the fire. The fireplace was too close to the charcoal-etched serpent. I crawled to the entrance of the cave and sat waiting for the first grey pre-dawn light, huddled into the blanket, rehearsing the nightmare. The nightmare would not leave my mind.

  I tried to explain it away. Nothing made sense. All I knew was that I needed to go home. As soon as I could see the path, I gathered my stuff and scrambled down the treacherous bank. I headed back to my caravan. I was relieved to find that everything was as I had left it. The sun was rising as I lit my fire and heated water for my bath. I told myself to get a grip: I told myself that I had had a ghastly nightmare, that I had hallucinated, that I had dreamed the unspeakable incubus—that I was home safe now, and all was well.

  But as I began to wash myself, the horror returned. I could see that there was blood on my thighs. I could smell a strange, musky odour on my skin. I scrubbed myself clean, remembering. I knew, then, that the Darkness truly had violated me. I knew that some dark thing had used the black crystal to find me. I was very, very frightened.

  * * *

  It was late in the day when Detective Inspector Dyson put the journal down, massaging his temples with his fingertips. “Christ almighty,” he muttered. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here sifting through the sexual fantasies of an old lady.” He looked at his watch. It’s almost time for a drink, he thought. I could almost risk running into the journo mob down at the pub. I’ll have to see them sooner or later—there’s only one hotel in this town, and we’re all staying in it. God knows I need a drink.

  On his way out he stopped by Sergeant Murphy’s desk.

  “Yes, sir?” she asked.

  “Tell the guys in the field to keep an eye out for a
crystal,” he said. “A black quartz crystal.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s evidence. If it’s out there, I want it found.”

  Murphy looked sceptical, but did not demur. “If you say so, sir,” she said.

  * * *

  Later that evening, duly fortified by several beers, a decent steak and a half-bottle of red wine, Dyson returned to his task. The revelations of the journal weren’t any easier to stomach, but at least he felt stronger. He sighed, and went back to sorting through the pages.

  July 17th

  For weeks, I have been afraid to sleep, afraid of what dreams might come. But the dark demon of my dream has not returned, and today I decided that I must take full control of my life once more. I decided I would not let a nightmare get the better of me. I decided that I had enough courage to go back to the cave, to face my fear.

  I was shaking when I got there, but I had to do it, I had to go in. I was not surprised to find that the dark crystal was still there, where I dropped it on the scuffed sand. I am as sure as I can be that no one else knows about the cave. I would not look again into the darkness of the crystal’s depths, but I put it into my jacket pocket. I will keep it safe.

  I built a fire close to the mouth of the cave, and I forced myself to spend another night there, watching the winter stars wheel overhead. I dozed, but I did not dream. There were no nightmares: I began to relax a little. I felt strangely welcome, then, as if I belonged. It seems that the danger has passed.

  September 25th

  I am elderly, well past childbearing age. I was not looking for the signs. My pregnancy has come as a shock.

  February 22nd

  It won’t be long, now. I have known, from the moment I first felt the child kick in my belly, that I cannot call a midwife when my time comes. It would be too dangerous if word ever got out. Devil spawn, the locals would call it. There are superstitious souls aplenty out there. I am terrified of what my offspring, sired by the incubus, might turn out to be. I will have to give birth alone. I hope I can survive it.

  March 20th

  The child is mercifully small. I woke in the dead of night, my contractions upon me. I knew my time was close. I was ready: I had prepared a pile of clean rags, I had filled my water kettle and set it on my spirit stove ready to boil, I had sterilized my sharpest knife. My waters broke. I steadied myself, gripping the bar that braced my bed. I rode the waves of pain, howling at the moon.

  I could sense that everything around my old caravan was still, waiting. The nocturnal animals paused in their routines, listening to my travail. I knew, in my bones, that the Dark was listening too. The Dark was waiting for its child.

  It had not long to wait. The tiny dark thing slithered out easily between my thighs. I grabbed it, held it, cut and tied its cord. Its first, unearthly cry split the silence of the night. I felt the tension ease. The child lived. I placed it on my breast to suckle it. It bit. It didn’t want milk, I realized. It needed blood. Instinct, and my hormones, took over. I let it feed. Whatever it was, it was mine. I knew, then, that I would care for it.

  I did what I needed to do. I cleaned myself up, and when I was steady enough to walk I put the afterbirth out for the scavengers to feed on—it was the best way, the way of the natural world. I swaddled the child and held it to my body to warm it. I have raised a lot of strange creatures, orphaned creatures, out here in the swamp. I would raise this one too. Eventually, I slept.

  The child’s wail woke me, piercing the night, demanding its next feed. In the lamplight, the eyes that looked up at me were as blue as my own, and the tiny fingers that curled around mine were human enough. But as for the rest . . . I could not pretend, even to myself, that this alien thing could pass for human. My breast was sore where I had been bitten. I took up the sharp knife and sliced my arm, just a little, so that the blood welled up, and I held it out to the child. It sucked greedily. It was the start of a feeding routine that almost cost me my life.

  June 29th

  The child grows very quickly. I am weak from loss of blood. I don’t know what to do to wean it.

  June 30th

  The Dark has provided the answer: today a freshly killed swamp rat was left on my doorstep—and the monster-child pounced. I had to turn away as it fed, gorging on sticky entrails. I couldn’t watch that. I cleaned it up afterwards.

  July 6th

  Tonight, the child left to hunt for itself. It went at dusk, and came back to me to sleep.

  July 10th

  I was getting used to this new routine, but last night the child did not come back. I searched for it, fearing the worst. But then I heard it, and I knew it had simply moved on. It’s only natural.

  July 12th

  I know the child is still out there, somewhere in the swamp. I can feel it when it is near; I will always recognize its howl, this flesh of my flesh that haunts the night.

  * * *

  Dyson felt sick. He knew he could go no further with this particular line of enquiry, at least for the moment. He put it aside, and switched to safer ground. He could check the Company records that had arrived this afternoon against the old woman’s diary entries: that much would be verifiable. He laid the printout of the Company’s official account of its interactions with the local community on his desk, and then searched through the journals until he found a matching entry.

  August 17th

  There is trouble brewing. There has been a public announcement. A coal seam gas facility has been approved in this area. My friends are indignant: they can’t figure out exactly why their land should be wrecked to provide power for far-away cities.

  I got a lift into town when the Company held its public meeting. I thought I might be able to help. I listened from the doorway at the back of the hall: I watched while the local mayor struggled to referee the confrontation. The community was divided. Landowners who wanted the income at any price shouted economics at conservationists who shouted back about endangering the water table and preserving wildlife habitat.

  The local people know about the swamp, about what hides beneath its surface. They say the swamp is haunted. They stay well away from it at night. But nobody listens to the locals. The locals are powerless. The bulldozer men have government contracts. They have bankrolled a huge advertising campaign, extolling the public good of their depredations. I know it is all about money: what they can take, what they can make.

  I had already told my friends about the environmental officers who came out to the swamp to conduct a special kind of survey. I didn’t know what it was for, until now. The whole thing was a farce. Those men were public servants: they only came during office hours. I watched them crashing about in the undergrowth, putting their feet up in their hide, slurping thermos lattes and leaving behind discarded sandwich wrappers. They knew I was there. They didn’t offer me so much as a packet of peanuts. They ignored me.

  I did offer to help. “You might like to look at my log book,” I said. “I’ve been recording wildlife sightings here for over twenty years. I know what lives here.”

  “No thanks,” they replied. “We can’t be sure it’s accurate. The survey has to be done by accredited experts.”

  “Meaning yourselves?”

  “You got it, lady.”

  So I left them to it.

  The birds and animals hid until the interlopers had gone. The dark things were always asleep. And the survey men, oblivious, went home each afternoon at four o’clock. I could have warned them: I would have warned them, if only they had not been so busy not seeing what was there.

  * * *

  The Company spokesman at the meeting was a smooth, oleaginous creep. He never stopped smiling. “The government has already sold us its permission,” he said. “Our fracking process has been declared safe. Any chemicals that leak into the swamp will be minimal, practically harmless.”

  “But you can’t really know what the impact on wildlife will be, can you?” one of the conservationists asked.

  “We will
study the situation carefully,” the man replied.

  “Can you reverse it?”

  “No—but we can take whatever steps become necessary,” he said.

  “It’ll be way too late by the time you do that,” another man yelled. “The damage will be permanent. You’ll just be dissecting the corpses of the creatures you have destroyed.”

  “We’ve done our environmental survey,” the Company man said smugly. “We didn’t find anything unusual or endangered in the swamp. There’s always some damage. But you will find that our projected levels are within acceptable tolerances.”

  “There is no acceptable level for mutation or death. This is a sensitive ecosystem. Everything that’s out there will be endangered if you have your way!”

  The mayor was doing his best to keep things calm. So he asked his next question: “What about the people who live here? How will your processes affect us?”

  “We can’t drink methane either,” the first conservationist said sharply.

  The Company man kept smiling. “I can assure you that contamination on that scale just won’t happen,” he said.

  “It already has, in other places. There’s a farmer up in the Valley who can light his tap water with a match. His video clip is all over the net.”

  The Company man ignored this. “We need to progress this industry,” he said. He was good at his job: he stuck to his message. “Our development will be good for the economy. It will provide jobs for your community. We have the requisite permissions. The cheapest option is to bulldoze an access road across government land, and that means going through the swamp.”

  There were angry mutterings at this.